To promote better labour conditions in global supply chains we need effective and sincere public-private cooperation in consumer countries. We need socially responsible buyer companies willing to invest in supply chain conditions. We need trade unions and civil society organisations that have set their priorities right and put supply chain workers’ interests first.
Why do we have so much suspicion and conflict between those who should be driving positive supply chain change together, as main private sector partners?
Relations have deteriorated
Global supply chain relations have indeed deteriorated during a number of years. Where joint sustainability approaches used to play the major tole we now see new alliances between global unions and labour advocacy organisations. Businesses tend to go more on their own than before, and there is a much weaker trade union participation in voluntary schemes and initiatives.
Labour relations are now more adversarial and the political climate harder than before the economic crisis hit. Instead of sharing the added value created by growth, labour partners fight over who will pay the costs of shrinking economies. Workers are carrying an unreasonably heavy burden through unemployment and dwindling standards. Income differences are bigger than ever and political polarization continues to generate conflicts and instability.
The International Labour Conference in June sent conflicting signals on supply chains. Employer organisations started by doing their best to deny that there would be governance issues needing to be tackled. Global trade unions and their NGO allies again saw nothing good in voluntary initiatives, questioned the sincerity of buyers and did not hide their preference for legislation that would impose rules and sanctions on them. Much of this was normal ILO tactics, for sure, but there is also a troubling reality behind.
An adversarial start was finally turned into agreement to continue discussions, with much of the credit going to the International Labour Office and ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.
Why are unions and campaigners against voluntary initiatives?
I can well see many reasons why global unions question voluntary multi-stakeholder and business driven social sustainability initiatives. Some criticism is fair enough, other reflections are linked more to trade union needs and ambitions. It is good to remember that corporate social responsibility itself is something suspicious in broad union circles. Business is not at all too innocent in this respect, having too often used CSR as a vehicle to avoid trade union recognition and collective agreements.
Many unions and advocacy NGOs are unhappy with what they see as a slow pace or even absence of improvements in supply chain labour conditions. They genuinely believe that voluntary initiatives have failed to change overall supply chain realities. This is why they call for more legal regulations and accountability.
These views are good to take seriously.
Brands and retailers have often dragged their feet and failed to act on poor working conditions in their supply chains. They ignored their due diligence obligations which of course existed far before the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights made them formal. For sure, there were brands and retailers that understood this and really tried to do something concrete, but there were also very many who did not.
Unfair to accuse initiatives for poor supply chain labour conditions
I share much of this union and civil society disappointment over an all too slow slow pace of change. The enormity of the task is a contributing factor, but also a bad excuse for not investing more resources and effort. Still, full credit should be given to the many brands and retailers who are very actively working on these challenges.
It is both unfair and professional to criticize the sustainability schemes and initiatives for this, or social compliance auditors. Here we often find the actors who have the strongest and most concrete commitment to decent conditions in supplier industries and who are trying to do something real.
To promote and support organising and collective agreements in producer countries is a legitimate activity for any trade union. At the end, working conditions and labour relations must be managed locally, respecting universal global norms. This requires a social dialogue between mutually respectful partners who negotiate collective agreements. They should preferably be concluded on an industry level, applied and enforced with effective government support. The IndustriAll-driven ACT project together with a number of buying brands in Cambodia is an interesting pilot for such approaches.
Many unions and advocacy organisations make a mistake when they try to throw out voluntary multi-stakeholder or business driven schemes and initiatives. There is no way that unions and social advocacy organisations could fill the gap if brands and retailers were to abandon their own programmes and activities. It is more than unlikely that most retailers and brands, and governments, would agree to substitute this work with legislation and sanctions. I also fail to see the logic in unionists and labour advocates demanding brands and retailers to respect their due diligence obligations if they are at the same time doing their best to discredit serious efforts. Ending the voluntary involvement of buying companies could spell disaster for workers in many supplier industries and countries.
The multi-stakeholder Bangladesh Fire and Safety Accord has achieved many things and I do support it of course, but we should also remember that even together with the business-driven Alliance it covers only a part of labour conditions, albeit an important one. The whole field of human rights and sustainability at work is very much broader. The problems encountered when trying to secure freedom of association within these projects send a message that mainstreaming their principles would be an extremely complicated and long process, if not even politically impossible.
Both legislation and voluntary schemes are needed
We will continue to need all stakeholders on the stage, both public and private, employers and unions. Voluntary schemes and initiatives are an important tool for this. For sure there needs to be more legally binding norms as well. National governments and the international community need tools to set minimum acceptable standards and at the same time a level playing field which would also protect serious enterprises against social dumping and unfair competition. How this could be done without creating disadvantages in the countries where governments take their obligations seriously, and without scaring buyers away from the least developed producer countries, remain to be seen.
As a result of awareness building, where multi-stakeholder and business driven voluntary initiatives have played the central role, supply chain conditions cannot be ignored by business anymore. They are now part of core corporate issues and concerns. Buyer-driven capacity building and remediation activities abound and suppliers have to pay more attention to their labour conditions.
This does not mean that voluntary initiatives should not improve their performance – in fact they are constantly doing this. I take an example which I know very well, Social Accountability International SAI. With their Social Fingerprint and Ten Squared programmes and an impressive work to improve SA8000 social audit reliability, the new young SAI leadership does indeed merit a very strong support from business, unions and other stakeholders. This is a good example of linking social auditing and workplace certification to capacity building and remediation.
The SA8000 Social Standard is still the strongest instrument to define and promote human rights at work and decent working conditions. In today’s social climate it would not be possible to reach a common understanding between the labour partners on levels as high as those in SA8000. Being one of the authors of the standard-setting GSCP Reference Code I can also vouch for the SA8000 having been one of the main resources in that work. SAI – as well at the Social Accountability Accreditation Services SAAS – has been an important source of knowledge and experience while we were working on the whole GSCP toolbox, with its guidelines and advisories for all parts of sustainability activities.
Campaigning against social auditing hurts workers and is not professional
Social audits play an important role when buying brands and retailers exercise their supply chain due diligence. Being visible and commercially managed parts of voluntary initiatives both auditors and auditing firms have been a frequent target for campaigns and criticism. Individual shortcomings and mismanagement cases have been generalized to question the credibility of the whole activity and industry. This is both unfair and incorrect towards the numerous serious and highly skilled enterprises and individual auditors who are producing important services for supply chain businesses and their workers. Without them, due diligence would be impossible. It is not professional to allow criticism against globalization and mistrust against large private enterprises influence the attitudes to social auditing.
Most social auditing takes place outside the public eye and there are indeed many reasons for this. Confidentiality rules are equally important to protect workers as their supplier employers. Without these rules it would often be impossible to get a correct picture of conditions.
Demands for more transparency in global supply chains and buyers’ supplier relations will surely bring some changes to sustainability audits. This has to be done without violating the necessary confidentiality. The auditing industry itself can benefit from this. The new Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors APSCA where I am now a member of the Stakeholder Board will have to address this issue.
We need respect and new cooperation between supply chain players
We should move to new convergence within global supply chain sustainability work and engage both public and private partners in joint efforts. We do need to accept and support a broad specter of action and initiatives, the task is far too big to successfully approach otherwise. This we owe to the workers and their families as well as to the businesses and entrepreneurs in producer countries. Relations at home in advanced consumer countries cannot be allowed to undermine effective joint efforts but must be kept separate. The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP has proved that this can be done and a similar message comes from Germany’s Textile Alliance.
Genuine engagement and responsibility, mutual respect by and for all participants, and honest intentions to build pragmatic and effective partnership are some of the elements that are now needed.
